Tuesday, March 4, 2008

It's a Jungle Out There...

It’s gotten to the point in this world where online dating is just as bad as going out into the real word and doing the same thing. I am not sure why this is, but it has driven me to the point where I almost want to be in a relationship just so I don’t have to deal with having to find a date anymore. Thankfully, I work with married people, who strongly, STRONGLY encourage me to stay single as long as possible, so it all seems to balance out. But honestly, it seems that people are more paranoid about meeting people online than in real life, yet they engage in the activity of looking online more than looking in real life. For example, I wrote to one woman on OKCupid, who I actually had known in the past but lost contact with. I sent her two extremely friendly messages suggesting we meet for coffee; in broad daylight in a public place. There was not a hint of “lets meet in a deserted alley around 4 AM” in any of my messages. This was the response I received.

“John,

I appreciate your persistence and diligence in trying to make contact with me.However, I have to tell you that I am not interested in pursuing anything with you.I haven't responded to your messages, despite the many you've sent, because I was hoping I wouldn't have to say it outright - generally these things are communicated through more subtle means.

I wish you luck in your life and in your loves, but I don't have a place in either of those.

Thanks,

L”

First of all, can I say how much I hate the "soft" rejection? Rejection is rejection, and no amount of sugarcoating is going to making it better. No one's feelings are going to be saved by being ignored, in fact, that feels 100x more painful, believe me. And women, for the love of God, PLEASE stop this nonsense where you think that ignorning someone communicates that you have said NO to them. You know what means no? NO MEANS NO!!! And don't give me the line that guys should get the point, because A. no one is a mind-reader, and B. for every girl who says non-communication should be a hint, there is a girl who says she is too busy to answer her emails and that people shouldn't be offended if they don't get an answer right away. Basically, for every excuse a woman can give for not being straightforward, there is another woman somewhere who can present the exact opposite argument. We as men (and even for women who like women) can't know automatically which is which so please, practice being straightforward. It is in everyone's best interest.

Now for the record, I sent this particular female 2 (two) messages, the second of which was a two sentence missive asking if she was well and if she had heard about my blogspot. That’s what prompted this telenovela-style “Dear John” response. Also, this same woman had no more than a week previously written a journal entry about how she liked to be pursued by men, leading one to think that she liked persistence. She forgot to mention, that she only likes persistence from guys she considers to be attractive and not from, say, me. Not that I am not attractive, I happen to know people who believe that I am… she just does not happen to subscribe to that particular philosophy. I'm fine with that, can't please everyone after all. I just hate the passive-aggressive way she went about it. I wasted time on a lost cause when I could have been writing or reading webcomics instead of writing to her. At least in a bar you don't have your rejection drawn out over a space of a few weeks.

I’m not really sure why this happens. I guess in some cases maybe I just have a mutant ability to pick crazy paranoid girls who freak out easily. It’s been brought up on several occasions that I may have a tendency to just subconsciously pursue women who will flake out extra easily. Some people have flat-out stated that I’m a crazy-chaser, but I don’t think that’s true. I have found that the more interesting a woman is, the more prone she is to have certain eccentricities, but that does not mean that I necessarily look for signs of personality disorders in the women I want to date. That’d be more psycho than anything. And even I’m not that crazy. Then again… the last girl I talked to on OKCupid went from wanting to date me to saying we could never talk to each other, and every spot in between, in the space of two weeks, so maybe I should lay off the “special” girls for a bit.

This does not just happen to men though, as I thought it did. I know exceptionally attractive and desirable women who get this same crazy illogical treatment from men on the internet, but I have a hypothesis about this. Men are lazy, barely evolved pond scum 80% of the time. The kinds of men that absolutely have to use internet dating sites are almost entirely of the pond scum variety. Now this type of man is usually only looking for one type of woman; dumb sluts. If a girl looks like she’ll be any type of work at all, then he is not interested. The first thing he is turned off by is intelligence, as he probably is not too intelligent himself. This man knows that any halfway intelligent woman will see right through his stupid lines and lame ploys, and that automatically is too much work for him to get the sex that he’s after. Basically this guy can look at a woman and tell if she’s gonna fall for his line of BS or not. He is easily intimidated by confident woman, and usually looks for women with low-self confidence who he knows will be easily impressed with a few compliments and a few drinks. Bottom feeders like this are equally dangerous because they make confident woman doubt themselves, when in reality those women should be glad they scare thee assholes away.

Some of these guys maybe actually intelligent, but these types are even worse, because they are incredibly picky and snobbish. They are the first ones to find any flaw in a woman (usually physical) and hold that against them. These douche bags will take any opportunity to make another person feel bad about themselves. I personally want to snap these guys necks with my bare hands when I see them in person, but since they know they are universally despised, they usually do their dirty work from the safety of the internet. They can get a woman’s hopes up by have coherent and attractive profiles, but then turn out to be the same kind of genital-inhaler as one would find in any bar at 2 AM. The only difference is that they have the internet to be able to reject woman to make themselves forget about their tiny pride and even tinier penises.

So what’s to be done about all of this?I suggest the neutralization of a major percentage of the adult population of the world, through perhaps a robot/zombie holocaust. It’s the only thing that will for sure keep men and women from hurting each other.

6 comments:

Jesse
said...

To paraphrase Bender, people are stupid, putrid cowards, and nowhere is this seen more clearly than on the internet. People tend to think that if you ignore a problem, it will go away, rather than dealing with it. Consequently, rather than give someone an honest rejection, most people will just not respond. It's frustrating, but so it goes.

I've actually met girlfriends, rather successfully, on the internet, but that isn't to say I think it's any better than finding someone in the real world. Both have their risks and rewards.

In the real world, it's easy to tell right away if you have actual chemistry with someone or if they like you, but harder to pick up their particular interests and quirks. Online, you can read all about those things and perhaps better gauge if they're someone you might like and who might like you without the risk of rejection or social awkwardness. One problem there is that people really misrepresent themselves a lot of the time. Another is how internet chemistry and real world chemistry are not the same thing, and it can lead to some very awkward dates.

People need to be more honest in general, I think. Attempting to spare someone's feelings does not necessarily spare their feelings. Honesty might not either, but at least it's over quickly, and far less insulting.

I appreciate your confidence and the darling means by which you are attempting to express yourself, but I am not interested in reading your blog. I thought I made that clear by subscribing to your posts and displaying them on my website. I am sorry if this confused you.

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About Me

Exit Eleven refers to the Exit off of the NJ Turnpike of which I have lived most of my life (I have lived off of Exits 10 and 9 for a few years) but most of my life I've lived off of Exit 11. It's a Jersey thing, some people are proud of and some people despise it, but we all know what exit we live off of. It is sort of ingrained in our DNA. I happen to be proud of it, and my state. That's why I named my Blog after it.

Exit 11 is mostly reader driven, meaning I write about what people around me want to read about at the time, or what is going on in my life at the time. Other times I just write about whatever is going on socially. Hopefully it's funny, but it's always relevant. Mostly.

I'm just a normal guy who has an opinion about absolutely everything under the sun. I am a combination Writer/Psychologist, which gives me a unique perspective on life, the universe, and everything. My two favorite subjects are Love and Race, but I cover everything eventually.